


total eclipse of the heart

by sierraadeux



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Established Relationship, Human/Vampire Relationship, Inspired by Art, M/M, too much something that starts with t and rhymes with skylight influence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26821858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierraadeux/pseuds/sierraadeux
Summary: The logistics of forever.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 51
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is just words that do the tiniest bit of justice of showing how [kelly's art](https://finalfeud.tumblr.com/post/624201542010060800/vampire-bfs) makes me feel

“What if…” Phil has that cheeky look on his face, that look that really doesn’t belong in a setting like this. Where he’s taking Dan apart, body firm and hard over him—all encompassing. He trails off, kissing at that spot on Dan’s neck that pulses with his heart. 

But it is _them,_ so it belongs all the same. 

“Yeah?” Dan breathes. Phil’s front teeth press into skin, so quick and gentle it barely leaves an indent. Dan sucks the air out of the room all the same. It’s not like Phil needs it anyway. 

“What if I was a vampire…” Phil kisses up Dan’s neck, speaks into the spot just behind his ear. 

Dan huffs out a laugh, pinching at Phil’s side. “You are.” 

Phil tongues at the black stud in Dan’s ear. Dan clenches his teeth at the feeling, breath stilled. He wishes Phil would do the same. 

Phil ignores him. “And _you_ were a vampire…” 

Dan whines—high, needy, desperate. As if _he’s_ the one rendered stupid and primal at the very scent of Phil.

There’s a kiss pressed to his cheek. Then Phil is sitting up so quickly Dan feels a bit dizzy, hands clambering against cold skin to pull him back. But Phil is like dead weight— _ha—_ in his lap, unmovable and so, so beautiful. Even with that ridiculous look on his face. The one that means something equally as ridiculous is about to come out of his mouth. 

“And we touched fangs.” His eyebrows dance on his forehead, smiling wide. Baring himself in a way Dan knows should elicit fear. All he feels is fond. 

Dan rolls his eyes. Phil wiggles his hips, amber eyes going crinkled around the edges as pink pokes through those brilliant white teeth. 

“And we were both boys?” 

Phil nods once, laugh hissing through his teeth.

“And we were both boys,” he says, resolutely. 

Dan smacks at Phil’s thigh, hisses through his own teeth for an entirely different reason, clenches his hand and winces at the sting. Phil’s bottom lip goes all pouty, eyes apologetic. 

He knows they’re just playing. But sometimes Dan thinks he wants that. He wants Phil more than he wants to breathe, and that’s a terrifying thought. 

A thrilling thought. The chance of a _real_ forever. 

Cool fingers wrap around his wrist, gentle kisses and soft apologies for something Phil didn’t even do are pressed into his palm. Dan holds on to the floaty feeling in his head, the one that yearns for Phil and him to simply exist without the guilt that weighs down those impossible shoulders. He’s not even thinking when he bends his hand, pressing the thin skin of his wrist against Phil’s open mouth. 

It’s a challenge, or maybe a pathetic plea. He looks up, nearly begs for it as he watches Phil’s eyes go so dark it’s impossible to distinguish between pupil and iris. 

They were once blue, Phil had told him. Showed him pictures of a person so familiarly foreign. All Dan knows is gold, liquid honey, and black only seen in nightmares, horror movies. 

Dan doesn’t feel like he’s in a horror movie. He only feels love—trust as Phil kisses his wrist once, feather light. Again, the firm press of his lips.

Gold slowly works its way back. Phil doesn’t take his mouth away from Dan’s wrist. He feels the cool press of teeth against his skin and a shudder racks down his spine, so prominent he feels the shake against Phil’s teeth. 

Phil’s lips move against his skin. “Right now?” 

Dan sucks in a breath, nods, doesn’t once lose Phil’s gaze.

Phil’s deep sigh squeezes at his heart, he presses his wrist against Phil’s mouth—insistent, pleading. A last ditch despite Phil’s eyes dropping shut. Despite knowing he won’t be winning tonight. 

But that’s alright. 

They’ve had ten years. 

Phil kisses Dan’s wrist one last time, trails small pecks back up his palm. 

They have right now, tonight. 

Dan closes his eyes, lets his head settle back on the soft pillow. 

They both want forever. 

Phil catches Dan’s ring between his teeth, makes them both huff an alleviating snort of laughter, then kisses each and every fingertip. Dan, somehow, feels the steady beat of his own pulse there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so maybe i lied about this being 2 parts

Rain patters loudly outside the windows, the rhythmic tapping amplified through the skylight just above where Dan’s curled up on the sofa. 

It’s the kind of late autumn storm that chills him to the bone, despite the crackling fire across the room and the fact that he hasn’t been out all day. 

He hasn’t even changed out of his comfortable lounge clothes, all bundled up in thick sweats and a soft, loose tee with his furry blanket Phil always claims resembles a dead animal—despite being nothing of the sort—wrapped around his shoulders. He, at least, moved from the bed to the bathroom and kitchen a few times. Then spent his day with decent enough posture at his desk, typing away until the sun started to dip from the sky and Phil pressed a kiss to his temple to let him know he was leaving to go pick up dinner. 

Phil didn’t want to go out in the rain, spending his day just as lazy and cozy as Dan, but Dan had insisted somewhere between lunch and the satisfying crack he got out of his neck after finishing chapter three. He’d been eyeing the fat, pitifully puffed out pigeon on their balcony for a full hour on the sofa in Dan’s peripheral, and Dan knew Phil would’ve been upset for weeks to come if he didn’t intervene. 

As much as he teases Phil about their subscription delivery service for fucking bird seed, joking that Phil is really just trying to fatten up the city birds that frequent their home, he knows Phil’s developed some sort of odd pet complex about them. He has, too. Though he won’t dare admit it. 

But he cares enough to put himself between them, look into those too dark eyes with a challenging glare until Phil aquiesces with a huff and a pout. 

Dan loves being told he’s right. Especially in that adorably put out voice of Phil’s. 

He regrets it a little, when he triple checks his backup saves and turns off his desktop, calling it quits for the day and plopping down into his well-loved crease in the sofa with two empty glasses of wine and the full bottle on the coffee table. He pops the cork and pours himself a few splashes—wanting to wait for Phil, but wanting the slow internal warmth just that little bit more. 

Time passes in the little bottle of nail polish Dan brought out to the lounge the night before. There was an intention, to paint his nails then, but Phil had a roaming hand on his thigh before he could even shake the bottle twice. 

With no Phil Lesters in sight, Dan stretches forward, his blanket falling from his shoulders and pooling around his waist as he swipes the polish off the table. He taps it against his palm, a chill making its way down his spine at the cool glass—the black void swirling together. 

He really should have gotten up to put the actual heat on and not just rely on the fire with the even cooler front coming in, but Dan’s quite lazy, and Phil rarely catches the difference. Says he only feels the warmth when Dan’s hands are on him, when he’s curled up to his side. Says he doesn’t care for warmth that isn’t Dan anyway. 

Dan’s not so sure how to feel about that. His hand shakes only slightly as he swipes black against his thumbnail, he leans forward to steady it on his knee, nose all scrunched up in concentration. 

It makes him feel warm, from the inside out, to think he could defrost a cold heart like that. After all these years, he still revels in the reminder that Phil may very well love Dan as much as Dan loves Phil. 

Though, after all these years, it feels ridiculous to question how deeply that love runs. If it runs deeper than the blood in his veins. If Phil would love him as much, more, if he wasn’t warm. Because that’s what Dan wants. 

He gets outside the lines on his ring finger, uses his other thumb to scrape along the edge before the polish dries to his skin. He pauses at the band on his finger, twists his hand around to admire it, his other four nails starting to dry as his pinky finger remains bare from his distraction. 

A symbol of forever, or something like that. Forever, they had said, in witness of their friends and family. Distinctly not as long as they both shall live—they hadn’t wanted that. They don’t want that. 

But it’s been a while. Dan thumbs at the band, spins it a few times until the few remaining bits of black metal at the surface—chilled from the air of their flat—turn entirely golden from the warmth of his touch. It’s been a while, and Dan thinks he’s impatient for forever. 

He always thought Phil was the impatient one. They’re the same person really. Two connected souls—or whatever bullshit—that finish each other’s thoughts and sentences, whine for the same reasons, tap their feet and flick bits of hair out of their eyes at the same time. He’d have a gag about it if he were an onlooker, to be honest. They’re so in love and in tune with each other it’s admittedly a little disgusting. 

Though he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

_Well…_

Dan shakes the polish bottle in his hand and pulls the cap back off, doing his whole pinky in one fell swoop. 

He wants that little bit more, little bit less, that they promised each other all those years ago. It used to come and go in waves. Phil so desperate for it he couldn’t look Dan in the eye without his going black, but Dan gave him that tight shake of his head, knowing he wasn’t ready just yet. And Dan, Dan so desperate for it he’d find any excuse to get Phil’s mouth by his pulse points, go as far as dragging his skin against Phil’s barred teeth, but Phil never let them sink in—somehow knowing, deep down, that neither of them were really ready. 

Dan feels ready. He thinks he does, at least. 

All he knows is that he feels just one notch below settled. He looks in the mirror and sees himself, sees Daniel Howell with his own eyes for the first time in probably, ever. He sees the faint lines at the corners of his eyes and in his forehead, spots from the sun, and little scars from kitchen accidents and general tomfoolery. He looks as lived in as he feels. As he wants to be. As Phil looks. 

Right now, he doesn’t look much younger, or older, than Phil. When he looks in the mirror, he sees Phil’s counterpart, Phil’s husband. And he wants to reach out and grab it, hold the image still—forever. 

He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll have to do so. He doesn’t know when he’ll look in the mirror and realize he’s missed that chance. He doesn’t want that to happen. 

He knows. He knows Phil would love him for his own forever. Love him until his face is entirely lines and his curls go grey. Phil has said as much, they’ve had those endless conversations. Dan knows that in his lifetime, for him, they’ll never run out of time. 

But that isn’t what he wants. He knows that isn’t what Phil wants as well, but Phil is selfless and loving and _good_ —that’s why he hadn’t turned him at any of those many, many opportunities.

He’s _good._

And Dan wants _his_ forever. 

He wants it now. 

Or soon, at least. But maybe he’s a little vain. Maybe he’s flipping his phone camera around from the picture he’s just taken of freshly painted nails wrapped around a wine glass to capture his face. Maybe twenty-nine looks hot on him, maybe he also wants _that_ forever. 

He pouts into his camera, makes it all dramatic and pleading, sends it off in a text to Phil with a: _when are you coming hooooooome??_

Then tacks on a: _miss u_ with an emoji nowhere near as pouty as his face. Adds the water droplets, just for good measure. 

There’s a ping and a little heart bubbled over his picture instantly. 

_Soon._

_Promise!!_

_Dominos?_

Dan doesn’t bother responding, instead clicking over to the Domino’s app to put in the usual order for pick up, selfishly saving Phil those few extra minutes. His heart is really starting to ache for him, and he’s only been gone for just over an hour. 

_That can’t be healthy_ , Dan sighs as he drops his phone on the sofa and absently blows at his tacky nails. It only takes two seconds for him to decide he doesn’t care. 

Falling in love with a vampire wasn’t the best idea for any humans worried about their health, so it’d be a little hypocritical to care about it now.


	3. Chapter 3

There’s always that ridiculous spike of panic whenever Dan’s mind drifts off and he’s pulled back down to earth by the sound of a key in the door, followed by the echo of it opening and swinging back shut. As if it could be anyone other than Phil. 

He can hear his pulse in his ears as he shakes his head, stretching and yawning while the heavy clunks of Phil stumbling around downstairs fill their apartment—no doubt tripping over his own feet trying to toe his shoes off. 

It’s funny, that they say vampires are all stealth and sex and… coordination. 

Phil is really only one of those things. Maybe two on a good day, though Dan mostly looks the other way when Phil thinks he’s being sneaky. It’s not like _he_ would be eating those sweets stored in the highest cabinet in the kitchen anyway—not as he is now, at least. So he lets Phil think he gets away with it, if only for the warmth it brings to his heart upon seeing that satisfied grin on his face when he crawls back into bed after a “secret” late night snack. 

Phil makes his way upstairs to the lounge with a large Domino’s box held against his hip and red stained lips. Dan takes the coppery kiss with a scrunch of his nose and a playful shove once the pizza is safely on the coffee table. Phil is sopping wet. Fallen bits of hair drip right into Dan’s face as he holds on, pulling him closer to steal just a few more of Dan’s warm kisses before he actually pushes him away and towards a shower. 

He’s tempted to join, the idea of being pressed between near-scalding water and Phil’s cool body sounds _almost_ as good as the still steaming pizza in the box in front of him. 

Pizza wins—this time, at least—Dan decides, sitting up and crossing his legs to settle the box right in his lap. 

He’s not too sure how much longer he’ll have this specific temptation. He wants to enjoy it, fresh and hot, and there’s absolutely _no_ personal experience behind the knowledge that shared showers and slices of pizza can’t coexist. 

Dan loses himself in a Bake Off rerun and greasy cheese dunked thoroughly in so much garlic dip he’s sure Phil will make the joke when he returns. And he does, plopping down next to Dan and removing the empty box from Dan’s lap in one swift movement, giving him a waft of their fruity body wash and a spearmint kiss. 

“So strong,” Phil says as he pulls back, scrunching his nose as he settles into Dan’s side. Dan wraps his arm around his shoulder, pulling hard into soft and squeezing as tight as he can before his hand starts to ache. 

He wants to climb inside of him, sometimes. Which sounds as fucked up as it is, but it’s true. Sometimes he just wants Phil so close that it’s impossible to distinguish between the two of them, and even then he reckons that wouldn’t be close enough. Right now is definitely one of those times. 

Phil buries his face in Dan’s neck, inhaling deeply. He knows he feels it too. 

“Garlic doesn’t bother you, you big baby,” Dan teases, the hand on Phil’s shoulder finding purchase in his damp hair when Phil snakes both arms around his middle—clinging just as much as Dan. 

Phil can probably feel the spike of Dan’s pulse against his lips. It’s not a novel thought that with just that tiny bit more pressure Phil could easily crush him, snap him right in half, but it does something to his body all the same. 

Fear. Horny. Whatever it is that falls between. 

“Not that,” Phil hums against his neck. He kisses his throat before pulling back just enough to look at Dan, catch his gaze, then squint at the little black bottle on the coffee table—accusatory and adorable. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Dan laughs. “Sorry.” He scratches at Phil’s head, getting a satisfied hum and an upward push that makes him feel like he has a vampire dog for a partner. “They’re dry, thought the pizza smell would drown it out.” 

“You’re cute,” Phil says, dotting it with a tap at the tip of Dan’s nose. “Can still smell the curry you cooked last week.” 

That surprises Dan. Just when he thinks he knows everything, Phil still surprises him. “Really?” 

Phil nods, humming. 

“Weird.” He loops a finger around a strand of hair, twirls it around until it settles on Phil’s head in a wave. “Wish I could understand.” 

It’s an open door, a question on Dan’s lips, waiting for an invite. 

Phil hums again, displaces Dan’s hand and elicits a whine of protest as he unwraps himself just enough to lean forward and swipe the bottle off the table. He squints at it, holding it up to the light, before going to copy the movement he’s seen Dan do hundreds of times—mostly when they’re sprawled out on the recliners on the balcony, city air masking the pungent smell that often bothers Phil’s nose. 

“No!” Dan lunges quickly, smacking into Phil’s side to grab at his wrist, stopping him from smashing the glass bottle against his palm. “Don’t,” he adds, softly when the crisis is averted and Phil is looking at him like a kicked puppy—really… _vampire dog._

“You’d smash it, bub,” he explains in that same tone. Phil lets him take the bottle, and he shakes it in the air without the assistance of his other hand before handing it back to him. 

Phil copies the motion with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth—determined. Dan doesn’t at all fixate at the sharpness there, at the daydream of what it must feel like to be the skin between those teeth. 

“Can you do mine?” Phil turns to him with a bright smile. Eyes of the warmest honey meet his smile, render Dan speechless and stupid for a few breathless moments. 

It’s bold of him to think he hasn’t just been in a constant state of speechless and stupid for the past decade of his life, to be honest. But he feels… especially so in these moments. Where Phil really looks as impossible as he is. 

He left Dan with eyes as dark as his hair, returned with an entirely different shade. And that feels routine to Dan, nothing out of the ordinary despite being exactly that. 

Dan can’t help but long for a different routine, one where there isn’t that gap of time he is always left wondering about. 

It’s not like he hasn’t asked, gotten the answers out of a wine soaked or hazy post-orgasm Phil, but that isn’t the same. That isn’t firsthand experience. And Dan’s always had an issue with the belief in what he hasn’t seen through his own eyes. Not like he doesn’t _believe_ Phil, obviously, but it’s just not the same. 

The wait for that invitation sits heavy in the air. Dan is impatient, but he waits. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Dan smiles, shifting around so he’s facing Phil cross-legged, tugs at one of Phil’s knees until he gets the memo and mirrors him. 

In all their time together, Dan doesn’t think Phil has ever painted his nails. He’s definitely never asked Dan to, that’s for sure. It makes him buzz a little, warmth settling in his chest as a chill takes over his left knee. 

It’s ironic that Phil flinches at the cool feeling the second Dan presses the brush to his thumb. An overwhelmingly fond, “ _Stupid,_ ” settles between them as Dan replaces the cap and takes Phil’s hand in his to slide his ring off in a precautionary measure. He doesn’t quite feel like getting that involved if he ends up having to give Phil’s hand an acetone bath later, though hopefully he’ll stay relatively still. 

Dan snorts to himself while he shakes the bottle again, Phil’s hand back on his knee—that’s just a funny thought when it comes to Phil. 

Miraculously, Phil does, _mostly_ , manage to stay still. Dan swipes black over Phil’s nails with focus and precision, lip tugged between his teeth and a little crease folded between his brows. He even gets through a second coat, black completely opaque and glossy. He knows Phil doesn’t really care, won’t find much of a difference between one coat or two, but maybe Dan just likes having their knees pressed together. Maybe he likes the calm stillness, the repetition, Phil going pliant and willing under his hands. 

“Now don’t go touching anything,” Dan warns while he scrapes his thumbnail over the edge of Phil’s right pinky, leaving his manicure perfect. 

“Oh my god,” Phil says quietly, moving his hands back and forth to admire them once Dan lets him go. “I want to touch… everything,” he whispers. Dan catches his eyes darting across the room, indeed assessing the _everything_ in which he will touch. 

Dan grabs at Phil’s wrists before he can even shift. “Oh no you don’t.” He settles his hands back on his knees, holding them there with a stern eye and a plea to keep them there until they dry. 

“Hand jail,” Phil mutters. 

“Oh, _poor_ Phiw,” Dan teases, leaning forward carefully to kiss away the pathetic little whine in his throat. 

After a few intense staring contests, Dan bends over with a watchful eye to pour them both wine. He goes as far as scooting forward to tip the cold glass against Phil’s lips—really not trusting him to mess up his masterpiece. 

It’ll absolutely go to Phil’s head. Dan can see him requesting to be fanned and fed grapes out of the palm of his hand on their chaise in the near future. He’d do it happily. 

“Hey,” Dan says, soft. His eyes trail up from the red collar of Phil’s tee, across starkly pale skin. Sharp features and a soft pink smile. It’s darker in color now, stained with the same wine that’s making it all loose and lopsided. He wants to kiss it, taste the sweetness on his tongue. He keeps going though, presses on until he’s stuck in that amber warmth. “Love you.” Dan smiles, feels his mouth tug into a similar state of lopsided and fond and stupidly in love. 

Phil’s eyes go soft, he scrunches his nose. “Ew, gross.” 

“Psht,” the sound hisses out of Dan’s mouth as he gently pushes at Phil’s shoulder, leaning into it and finding a nice spot for his forehead to rest. His hand barely stings with how soft and warm he’s feeling. 

“I love you,” Phil says, low and deep and _sure._ Dan giggles at how Phil’s voice vibrates against his skin, pushes himself back because he can’t see his face from the crook of his shoulder and he already misses it. 

Gross is right, honestly. 

“Forever?” Dan asks, because he has to. Because he’s feeling some type of way. Because sometimes he just needs to be reminded of the logistics of their forever. 

“Of course,” Phil’s response is immediate, looking Dan right in the eye, “don’t be ridiculous.” 

Dan frowns down at their laps. “‘M feeling a little ridiculous.” 

“Can I?” Phil goes to lift a hand, catches Dan’s eye and waits—knowing even he, more or less damned to hell, absolutely does not want to have to pay whatever _Dan’s_ hell would be for ruining his nails. 

Dan lets out a little soft huff of a laugh. Apex predator—or whatever—afraid of _his_ wrath. 

He pokes at a few of Phil’s nails carefully, pressing a little harder when he deems them no longer tacky. 

“Yeah.” 

Phil instantly pulls him in tight, eliciting a surprised, “ _Oof.”_ Dan lets himself fall into Phil’s lap, wiggles around and knocks limbs together until he feels like he’s thoroughly crawled in—legs wrapped around Phil’s waist, Phil’s arms tight around his middle, a grounding, cool hand rubbing circles into his shoulder as he buries his face in Phil’s neck. 

“Having a day?” Phil asks. Dan tries to get closer, he grips at the soft, dark hair at the back of Phil’s head and sighs. 

“I don’t know,” he says, honestly. “Think I’m just mushy.” 

“Mushy?” 

“Yeah,” Dan nuzzles into Phil’s neck, “I feel full of mush.” 

“Mmm,” Phil hums. 

“Hey!” Dan flicks at his ear. He bites back the hiss of pain it causes, tries to play it off like it didn’t hurt him more than Phil—despite knowing they’re both well aware. 

“What?” Dan can _hear_ Phil’s eye roll. 

“Don’t try to eat my mush,” Dan huffs, burying his face back into Phil’s neck. 

“What?” Phil repeats, even cheekier. “You’re the one making yourself sound all appetizing.” 

“Mush doesn’t even sound appetizing. That’s like the _least_ appetizing word, Phil.” 

“Moist is the gross one. Mush makes me think of goop, and goop makes me think of those hot lava cakes-”

“Are you really replacing my insides with chocolate right now?” 

“Well, no.” Phil’s insistent shake of his head dislodges Dan. He sits back just enough to meet his eye and no further—still very much approaching stage six clinger. “Then you wouldn’t be tasty.”

“Gross.” Dan shakes his head, closing his eyes and reveling in the grounding feeling of Phil’s nose bumping against his. “You’re gross.” 

“I know you’d be tasty,” Phil decides. He leans forward, their cheeks brushing as his lips find Dan’s ear. “Just a bite,” Phil says low in his throat, almost a growl. He clacks his teeth in the air by Dan’s ear a few times and Dan gasps, going rigid in his arms. 

“ _Oh,_ ” Phil says, pulling back to take note of whatever desperate look is now on Dan’s face. 

Dan lets a hiss of a sigh out of his teeth—yearning and… horny? Yeah, just a little horny. 

“Yeah,” he says, looking down, somehow still embarrassed at how quickly red dances across his cheeks. He guesses he didn’t do himself any favors with the wine. 

Instead of pushing him away, Phil gathers him in his arms and holds him tighter. Dan feels him breathe in deeply, despite not at all needing to, nose pressing into the sensitive skin of his neck. Maybe he does though. Maybe Phil _needs_ to breathe Dan in, like that same tether Dan needs in the form of Phil’s arms wrapped tightly around his middle. 

“What does it feel like?” 

He doesn’t know how they ended up here, stepping on each other’s feet in clumsy twirls on the rug in the lounge. There isn’t even any music playing. Neither of them seem to care. 

“I mean, it’s not pleasant,” Phil says, letting Dan spin him by the hand. He comes back to Dan’s chest easily, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he pinches at Dan’s side before taking the lead.

“You’d probably like it though.” Phil presses close, steps on a toe. “Weird boy,” he hums into his ear. 

“ _Hey!_ ” Dan squeezes Phil’s shoulder, lets him dip him down with an eye roll. “It’s like you forget you’re on the pain train with me.” He shivers at the barely there brush of a kiss Phil places just below his ear. 

“Nuh-uh,” Phil pulls him upright—Dan’s turn to stumble and step on a foot, “I want off Daniel Howell’s freaky ride.” 

“It’s wild. And no you don’t.” 

Phil smiles, all fond and loopy and obsessed. “That’s true.” 

“Yeah?” Dan asks, low, as he wraps his arms tighter around Phil’s neck, stopping their clumsy loops to take on a slow sway. 

Phil bumps their foreheads together. It jostles Dan’s brain around the slightest bit, but it’s the grounding feeling he thinks he needs. “You really are mush today, huh?” 

“No comment.” 

“You’re my forever, you know?” Phil plays with the hem of Dan’s tee, sends shockwaves across his body from that spot below his hip where chilled fingers brush. “If you’ve somehow forgotten.” 

“I haven’t,” Dan is quick to say. He pushes forward, presses a lingering kiss to the corner of Phil’s mouth, feeling it twitch up under his lips. His heart races. “It’s just… a lot sometimes,” he sighs in the small space between them. “Sometimes I feel like it’s now or never. If that makes sense. Like, there’s been so many times and we just-” Dan cuts himself off, doesn’t finish the thought. Doesn’t think he needs to. Phil’s arms around him tighten, pressing them so close together it’s almost, _almost_ difficult to breathe. 

Dan only wants more. 

“Never doesn’t exist for us,” Phil says matter-of-factly—though it isn’t at all patronizing. It soothes something in Dan’s heart. “We’ll always have time, we’ll keep going.” 

Dan’s eyes flick up, feeling that two second fluttering pitter patter at Phil already looking at him so intently. So _sure._ Dan thinks he feels it, the unwavering clarity that it always has been, and always will be, the two of them against the world. 

“Will we?” 

“Yeah.” A smile stretches across Phil’s face. “Of course.” 

Dan hums and drops his head into one of his favorite spots—the space between Phil’s neck and shoulder. He finds safety there, comfort. He listens to the soft hushes of Phil’s voice as he cards a hand through his curls, listens to the beat of his own heart in his chest—doesn’t listen to Phil’s. 

It’s a novel thought that there’s nothing novel about it. It’d be weird to press a hand to Phil’s chest and feel a heartbeat. It wouldn’t feel like Phil. 

Sometimes Dan doesn’t feel like Dan. Sometimes he looks in the mirror, and his reflection stares back with a bit of a squint, knowing something is missing. He’s drifting in between something, feels it like the heat of the fire against his calves and the chill where his forehead is pressed. He breathes out deeply, warm breath that makes Phil shiver. 

“Dan?” Phil asks softly with a tug of a curl. Dan breathes a little giggle into his neck. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you scared?” 

Dan shakes his head, bottling the feeling of being so fully enveloped in Phil before lifting his head to look Phil in the eye. Warm honey only makes the feeling stronger. 

“Never been scared of you,” he says, truthfully. How could he when Phil looks at him like _that?_ With how he’s always looked at Dan like that—not predator and prey, just… warmth. 

Phil huffs, mint and wine and _Phil_ fanning across his face. “You really should have.” 

“Don’t be daft.” Dan bumps their noses together, Phil takes the opportunity to steal a kiss. 

“Are you scared?” he asks against Phil’s mouth. 

“ _Me?_ ” Phil shakes his head, displacing a few dark strands of hair in the process. Dan loosens his grip, lifts two fingers to push them back off his forehead. “You know I’ll love you forever, no matter what that forever is to you.” 

“You aren’t afraid my heart will just… ice over? That I won’t be _me?_ That I’ll become something you can’t love?” 

There’s a soft hushing sound in his ear, Phil pulling him back into the crook of his neck with a cool hand at the back of his head. He waits as Dan’s breath evens out, the only sounds filling the room being the crackle of the fire and the soft, rhythmic brushing of Phil’s thumb against his hair. 

“Is that what you’re worried about?” Phil asks when Dan’s heart is nearly as still as his own. 

Dan shrugs in his arms. He’s honestly not sure if he’s even worried—if that’s what he’s worried about—instead finding excuses to avoid the unknown. He wants this so badly. Nearly as bad as he wants Phil, as Phil wants him. It’d be stupid to doubt their connection. Dan won’t dispute the fact that he’s a little stupid sometimes. 

“It would be impossible for me not to love you,” Phil says, pulling him in even closer. “In any universe, any world.” 

“You’re impossible,” Dan huffs. He hides a smile in smooth skin, feeling warm all over. 

“You can see me, right?” 

Dan pulls back, makes a show out of rolling his eyes, earning a laugh that makes him want to crawl right inside of Phil’s skin. Despite the teasing, he can. He can see the bright openness of Phil’s eyes, the emotion there making him question why the adage is _“heart on your sleeve.”_ Phil’s heart is right in his eyes, there on view for Dan—and Dan only. 

He sees him, feels him under his hands. Impossibly real. 

Dan cups Phil’s face in his hands, smooth and soft and stable. He feels nothing but clarity as he looks into his eyes, slowly trailing his hands down his neck, across his shoulders. He squeezes at his biceps, hands wrapping around the firm skin just under the bright sleeve of his tee shirt. 

Dan reckons red is his favorite color on Phil. There’s just something about it—drives him a little nuts. 

Or maybe that’s just Phil. 

A smile stretches across Dan’s face. “I’m ready.” 

“Yeah?” The corner of Phil’s mouth twitches up as a firm hand slides up Dan’s back. Dan presses into the touch, breathing deeply, letting his eyes slip shut. “Right now?” Phil asks. 

The question—two words they have both uttered countless times. Almost always in jest. 

It isn’t now, they both can feel it. 

“Yes,” Dan breathes. “I’m sure.” He’s never been _more_ sure. He’s as sure about this as he is about Phil. And that- that means everything. 

The room is quiet as Phil dips him again, leaning over close to mouth featherlight kisses at his neck. Dan wants to push up into it, wants to whine and press up and take what he wants, but he feels immobile in Phil’s hold—like the mush has spread around and replaced all of his bones. Like if Phil loosened his grip Dan would melt right into the carpet under their feet. 

“Don’t let me go,” Dan says softly, opening his eyes to look up at Phil—who’s pulled away at the sound of his voice. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Phil smirks, makes a point of holding him tighter. Dan hums, content, as Phil leans in to kiss the very tip of his nose. “You’re so bite-able,” Phil says. He cases his point by biting at Dan’s nose playfully, barely a tickle of a scrape. 

Dan giggles, scrunching his nose and batting at the side of Phil’s neck where his fingers are interlocked. “Shut up, stupid.” It sounds an awful lot like, _“I love you.”_

The last thing Dan sees before he closes his eyes again is the way Phil’s eyes light up. The way his tongue peeks out from between his teeth with his smile. 

He knows exactly what Dan means. 

Teeth graze against the sensitive skin of Dan’s neck. Teasing, always teasing—Dan has half a mind to give him a little slap, tell him to get on with it, but he thinks Phil’s cut the wires connecting his mouth and limbs to his brain. He can’t do much of anything except trust Phil. He can’t even decipher if he’s scared or excited or a little _hard._ But that’s alright. Phil has his life in his hands and Dan trusts him enough to simply let his mind go blank. 

Something tells him Phil won’t pull away, nor will he leave him crumpled and drained. That serene feeling of total security washes over him, and is immediately followed by one, final, sharp intake of breath at the shock of Phil applying full pressure for the very first time. 

A laugh manages to escape from Dan’s throat as his mind starts to go foggy. Pain is shooting through his veins, his nails are digging so hard into the back of Phil’s neck that he’s not sure how his fingers aren’t just snapping right off—maybe they are, he can’t be so sure with the fire burning inside him. He laughs because Phil was right. He does kind of like it. 

But he loses it in a millisecond. The feeling of teeth piercing and pressing into the spot where Dan’s heart rapidly beats—slowing, and slowing, and slowing—flicks off one switch and replaces it with another. It sets something off in Dan where he’s unable to do anything but grip at Phil harder than he’s ever had, harder than he ever thought he could. The burn coursing through him is oddly pleasurable, despite the tension it’s coiling up deep within him. A battle between tense and loose all at once making him entirely breathless. 

If he could think, he’s sure his only thought would be how he needs to get closer to Phil, hold him tight in search of some sort of release for the all consuming tension that’s taken over his body. 

He doesn’t realize his own teeth are piercing skin until his mouth is filled with sweet, hot wetness. And then, he feels nothing at all. 

“Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living,” Dan hears, far away and muffled through the ringing in his ears. Then, as it starts to fall away, senses slowly coming back into focus, he hears Phil laughing at his own joke. 

_The fucker_ , Dan smiles. Or, at least, he thinks he does, only just regaining consciousness and the connection between his brain and the rest of his body. 

He feels… still. Eerily calm. Oddly normal. 

Dan leans into the firm body in front of him, registers that he’s completely upright again, doesn’t recall how or when he managed that. 

“How long was I out?” 

“Few days.” 

Dan’s eyes go wide, taking in _everything_ at the shock as they come into focus. Phil has that lopsided smile on his face, tongue poking through his teeth while he hisses out a giggle. 

“Your face,” Phil wheezes. He squeezes at his hands—Dan didn’t even realize he was holding them. “It was just a few seconds.” 

“You’re such a dick.” Dan’s unable to contain his smile, rolling his eyes. They feel weird in his head, like he’s seeing _too much_. He can pick out each individual strand of Phil’s stark black hair, even in the low light. He sees every glint of the swirling gold in Phil’s eyes, every pore of his skin, the barely there beginnings of hair on his jaw. 

_God,_ is this how Phil sees him? Suddenly he’s never felt so self-conscious in his life. With this level of detail, Phil is so distinctly inhuman, so distinctly beautiful. Dan couldn’t possibly compare.

“Wow,” Dan says, blinking an unnatural amount of times in a few short seconds. “I can see why you wear your glasses now, you know? This is… a lot.” He lets out a little nervous laugh, catches the sigh of relief that drops Phil’s shoulders, spreads across his face. 

Phil laughs, too. He does a cute little nod of his head, quiffed hair bouncing. Dan, of course, gets distracted by it. “It’s overwhelming,” Phil says with a gentle smile. 

“I don’t feel…” Dan trails off with a knit between his brows, trying to decipher what he _does_ and doesn’t feel. 

Surprisingly, he feels a lot. He feels the barely there, dull throb at his neck. He feels the slight stickiness on his tongue, pressing it to the roof of his mouth and swallowing dry a few times. He feels Phil’s thumb brushing against the back of his hand, feels the grounding pressure there. He feels Phil’s warm, concerned stare—feels it deep in his heart. 

He feels shocked. Shocked that he can feel that there, the squeezing and the pulling and the love right in his chest. Sure, Phil told him so, but it’s not like he’s going to let him have the satisfaction of saying it just now. For now, he just wants to bask in it. 

Dan was so caught up in worrying that he or Phil would love the other _less_ , he never stopped to think it was possible for him to love Phil _more._ He isn’t entirely sure, but he thinks he does. He thinks that’s what he’s feeling—more love than he’s ever felt. 

“I don’t feel much different,” Dan says quietly to an ever patient Phil. 

Phil smirks, squeezes hard at Dan’s hands before running his hands up his arms to press his thumbs into his shoulders. It feels like nothing more than a gentle caress. 

“Turn around,” Phil instructs with a glint in his eye, budding wetness and a bit of mischief there. 

With a guiding push from Phil, Dan does exactly that. Meeting his own eyes in the mirror above the fireplace, Dan gasps, taking in air for the first time in five minutes. 

As he gapes, Phil smiles smugly, wrapping his arms around Dan’s shoulders. He clasps his fingers together at the center of his chest, palms pressing against his shirt and resting his chin on his shoulder. 

Dan looks in the mirror and sees Daniel Howell. Rich brown curls still slightly mussed from his lounging and Phil’s fingers. Soft face, nose with that little bump Phil calls cute, skin just barely a touch warmer in shade than Phil’s—though it does look a little washed out. Might be from the shock, Phil has told him countless times it was merely chance that he fit into the ghostly pale stereotype. Phil hums something soft into his neck and Dan instinctually smiles—same deformity poking into the side of his cheek. 

He’s not looking at a stranger, that’s for sure. 

The red of his eyes—a passing feature that will settle into something far more familiar than Phil’s transition from blue to amber—matches the red of Phil’s shirt, the red drying on his lips. Dan smiles into the mirror, squinting his eyes as he bares his teeth. 

His eyes match the red staining his teeth. 

Dan catches Phil’s eyes in the mirror, a little frantic as they slip to the red at Phil’s neck. _Matching._

Phil chuckles, the warm, deep sound rattling the inside of Dan’s chest. “You got a little… eager,” he explains with a fond smile. 

“Oops.” Dan reaches up a hand to press at the already healing wound in Phil’s neck, he feels Phil’s hum against his fingertips. “Sorry.” 

Phil brushes him off, muttering something about it being _kind of hot_ that makes Dan’s head spin. He’s a little too distracted to lean into it now though, unable to keep his eyes off his own reflection. 

“Kinda pissed I didn’t get your cheekbones,” Dan says as he turns his head every which way, unabashedly checking himself out as Phil does the same. 

Phil snorts. “I didn’t birth you, that’s not how this works.” 

“Bet you’d want to.” 

Phil pinches at his chest, hard. “Shut up.” 

Dan can’t even begin to comprehend how it feels, knowing Phil isn’t holding back. Knowing that just an hour ago Phil wouldn’t have been able to do that without drawing blood. He feels that exhale of relief as well, deep in the new bones of his body. 

“You watch too many of those movies,” Phil mutters into the crook of Dan’s neck, Dan watching in the mirror as he kisses up to his jaw. He scoffs. 

“You’re the one that puts them on!” 

“Shhhhh!” Phil smiles into the kiss he plants on his cheek. And as much as Dan wants to roll his eyes and shove at his shoulder, he turns around in Phil’s arms in a flash, capturing his lips in a kiss that feels exactly the same. A kiss that’s always felt like forever. 

They, of course, touch fangs—even if it means Phil pokes a hole in Dan’s lip with how much the two of them are laughing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to bug me or rebloggy on [tumblr](https://sierraadeux.tumblr.com/post/631543306612015104/total-eclipse-of-the-heart-m-three-of-three)


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